Here's one for the annals of cyber warfare: Late last week a flood of network traffic hit the website of Aiplex, an India-based information-technology firm, slowing the site to a crawl and causing more than 200 service interruptions, according to antivirus firm Panda Security. Online protesters joined with an underground hacking group named Anonymous to punish Aiplex for its own reported cyber attacks against sites that host pirated movies and music.

Anonymous called on members of the 4chan image board -- a motley collection of 11 million monthly users who trade images, jokes, and verbal barbs online -- to spread the attack. As the online protest grew, so did the flood of packets. Anonymous then shifted the focus to its traditional nemeses, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), claiming the groups had targeted The Pirate Bay file-sharing site with a similar flood, more commonly known as a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS).

"For the past 72 hours we have brought down the oppresive RIAA and MPAA," states a grammatically challenged online graphic signed by WE ARE ANONYMOUS. "These corperations have fought to restrict our freedoms. They chose the tactic: DDoS. It is only fair that we return in kind."

Anonymous's weapon of choice was a software program dubbed the Low Orbital Ion Cannon (LOIC), which allows a large group of users to repeatedly send requests to a specific Internet address, overwhelming it.

But Anonymous -- and so far the media reporting on the event -- missed a few facts. In the two articles carrying the original claims of Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex, nowhere does he say U.S. movie studios hired his company to conduct attacks. (The closest claim is that an Indian joint venture with a U.S. media company was a client.) Instead, he discusses his antipiracy measures specifically on behalf of the Indian movie industry, commonly referred to as Bollywood.

After finding a pirated copy of a client's movie online, the company requests that the offending site take down the movie. If the site does not comply, Aiplex goes on the attack.

"The problem is with torrent sites, which usually do not oblige," Kumar told Daily News & Analysis on Sept. 5. "In such cases, we flood the website with lots of requests, which results in database error, causing denial of service as each server has a fixed bandwidth capacity. At times, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy the data to stop the movie from circulating further."

Needless to say, a firm taking such vigilante action in the United States would be open to criminal prosecution and civil litigation. Moreover, legal takedown notices seem to be far more effective than DDoS attacks, at least in countries with stringent copyright laws.

Kumar also never claimed he had targeted the Pirate Bay, the infamous directory of pirated movies, music, and software. And if such an attack happened, the Pirate Bay has not noticed, apparently having larger issues to consider, according to its tongue-in-cheek response.

"TPB does not notice things like that [attack]," the group said in an email. "It's invincible. And sometimes, invisible. TPB deals only with intergalactic conversations, not with companies."

While the MPAA acknowledged that the group's website had felt the impact of the attack last week, spokesman Craig Hoffman did not confirm or deny that the organization used any third-party firms like Aiplex.

"I'll have to get back to you," Hoffman said on Tuesday. He never did. And whether U.S. copyright holders are hiring Indian online hitmen to shut down torrent sites remains an open question.